An examination of high school students’ social skill levels according to participation in musical activities

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine the social skill levels of high school students according to their participation in musical activities. Social skills are important in all stages of an individual’s development, but due to physical and mental changes in high school years when adolescence is intensely experienced, the individual may have problems in adapting to the environment and expressing herself/himself. This study group consisted of 258 students from different types of high schools. In this research, the screening model, which is one of the quantitative research methods, was used. In this study, Social Skills Inventory, which was developed by Riggio (1986) and adapted to Turkish by Yuksel (1997), is used. According to the results of this research; female students’ emotional sensitivity, emotional expressivity and social control scores were significantly higher than that of male students, and male students' emotional control scores were significantly higher than that of female students; it was also found that the total social skill scores, social sensitivity scores, emotional sensitivity and social expressivity scores of the students playing instruments were significantly higher than those who did not play; it was also observed that emotional expressivity scores of the choir group were significantly higher than the students singing solo or taking part in an orchestra. According to these results, it can be found that music contributed positively to the increase of social skills of high school students who are exposed to some problems due to adolescence during high school. Keywords: Adolescents, music, music education, social skills.